Towards a Reformed Theatre: David Lyndsay and Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis

Abstract

Sir David Lyndsay's Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis is, notoriously, the lone surviving complete dramatic text of pre-Reformation Scotland. Yet scholars have often pointed out that a play which is so poised, inventive and theatrically confident cannot have sprung fully formed from a theatrical desert. In the absence of comparative Scottish play-texts, this article explores the practical theatrical experience of David Lyndsay (as court performer, herald, organizer of public pageantry and ceremonial, consultant, producer and director) and how that experience appears to contribute to his attitudes and practices as a playwright. The range and nature of Lyndsay's theatrical activity throws light more widely on the range of performance practices flourishing in Scotland in the mid-sixteenth century. It also helps us to understand the Thrie Estaitis itself as a particularly revealing instance of mid-sixteenth-century dramatic writing under the pressures of religious and intellectual reform.